The Fence/Experimental Sound Studio Artist-in-the-Archive Exchange Project
In early spring of 2023, the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) and Fence invited visual and sound artist Spencer Hutchinson and poet and writer Alyssa Perry to participate in the first of an ongoing series of cross-disciplinary exchange and collaboration between our nonprofit arts organizations. ESS and Fence suggested opening their sound and text archives to […]
Montevideo
A few hours before dinner, Dad walked into the restaurant and placed a bomb under the table. He armed it, set the timer and walked out. Our reservation was at six. We met in traffic. I was walking home and Dad was in his rental car, halted at one of the many red lights. The […]
Three Hybrid Prose
Séance So-and-so with your arms at your side – tiny bits of mercury in your mouth. true crime is never as disturbing as the podcast claims. so, someone doesn’t get out alive; big deal. I have an app on my iPhone that alerts me when there’s gunfire – West 4th and whatever – my stomach […]
from “And Yet”
When Jeff Alessandrelli handed me a copy of And Yet, which was reissued by Future Tense Books in April 2024, he noted the book was a work of speculative fiction. I recently described it to someone as Boy Bluets. When Nik Slackman, a digital editor at Fence, read an excerpt, he said: “I love this. […]
from the tale in gray [second light after death]
where to let time fly. is the night still weighing on the day. school closed. your teachers jumped on and off stage like monkeys on a hot tin roof. hands banded behind their backs, they were kneeling down before a crowd that circled the school auditorium. a photo of the sick old great man was […]
Fence Editorial Guidelines and Code of Conduct
Code of Conduct for Fence Editors Following is a guide as agreed to by the Editorial Directors and Board of Fence Magazine and Fence Books, for editorial policies as of 2024. ♦ Fence editors will treat each submission with utmost respect and protect the confidentiality and identity of submitters. ♦ Submissions received and in-progress should […]
When We Were Young
Salim, Obaid, Prakash, Usman, and I: five tough boys. We rolled our shirt sleeves up to the shoulders, hurled stones at pigeons, bulbuls, air-conditioner compressors. We were invincible, unpredictable. We saved our greatest mischief for the grocer. It went down this way: we would disperse into the grocery, open the ice cream fridge, then close […]
From “The Violet Hours”
From the point of view of love, look at this: a bank of purple irises, petals hanging like narrow tongues, the chipped tooth of a lover after tripping in the garden, the blood that rushes between the teeth like a tidal wave. See the red spreading. See it bloom at the buccal corners, slicking the […]
Five Essays on Mold While We Wait to Be Cleaned
How Mold Wants a Home as Badly as I Do, But Finding a Home Is the Same as Losing Your Name for It I feel sadness for the mold, a decayed reasoning, swimming pool drained and left with only the scum, but it is a living scum, scum that emanates an urge, the urge to […]
from the tale in gray [second light after death]
where to let time fly. is the night still weighing on the day. school closed. your teachers jumped on and off stage like monkeys on a hot tin roof. hands banded behind their backs, they were kneeling down before a crowd that circled the school auditorium. a photo of the sick old great […]
